<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I know I have plenty of time to make a decision, but closing in on the end of my freshman year undergrad I'm starting to think I may want to go to graduate school in ECE (undecided on a concentration, anywhere from solid-state physics to computer engineering). I applied to millions (ok, maybe 50 resume-drops and 10 more "full" applications) of internships for this upcoming summer, but I guess my status as a rising sophomore pretty much left anything very "technical" out of the question (I believe I'll get an offer designing Audio/Video systems for a smaller more IT-like firm but it would be pretty elementary compared to real systems design). So this summer I'm either doing that or becoming a manager at my former workplace (a country club, I'd be comanaging outdoor golf operations with one other person)...meaning anything very relevant is out of the question.</p>
<p>To my question - next semester I'll have to affiliate with our coop program here if that's the route I want to go, meaning I'd take classes the summer following my second year, go to work for 8 months, then come back for the spring of my third year and work for another 3 months the following summer before coming back for my entire senior year.</p>
<p>I've really been turned on by the few ECE classes I've had a chance to take and a few of the professors I've had a chance to talk to to the possibility of getting a masters/PhD and eventually going into research after graduation, but I still am intrigued by a possible career in industry...would it really hurt my chances of getting into a top-notch grad school if I had a year of industry experience but no real research experience? Could a coop in "research" (say, at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab or MIT's Lincoln Lab) be a good way to keep all doors open (even though there'd probably be no papers published or anything "academic" like that)? Would just research done during the school year here (at Cornell) with professors during my jr/sr years be enough along with work experience or would I be better off going for an REU as a rising junior, and then either an REU or an internship (depending on whether I want to attend graduate school) as a rising senior?</p>
<p>Cliffnotes: Would a year of industry experience (as a coop student) and limited research experience significantly hurt my chances at a top MS/PhD program vs. an REU or two without the industry experience?</p>
<p>Also, one more question, sort of along the same lines, I've noticed a lot of people on here saying they did REUs - how hard is it to get into one as a rising junior with a reasonably high GPA? If I didn't do the coop I'd be banking on getting admitted to one of these on my own. </p>
<p>Thanks for any help.</p>